Plans to boost town centres can’t ignore the car - David Alexander

Alerted, recently, to a news story about a plan to revive Scotland’s ailing town centres – yes, another one – I was particularly struck by a photograph used to accompany the text.
Marchmont in Edinburgh is bumper-to-bumper with parked carsMarchmont in Edinburgh is bumper-to-bumper with parked cars
Marchmont in Edinburgh is bumper-to-bumper with parked cars

Unsurprisingly the image showed a rather down-at-heel shopping street which I assumed to be part of a typical, provincial Central Belt town. Then I realised it was actually Glasgow’s Sauchiehall Street, which not so very long ago vied with Edinburgh’s Princes Street as Scotland’s top retail destination. Back then, on Saturday afternoons, parents would tightly hold on to their children’s hands lest they get seriously lost, so dense were the crowds of shoppers on this thoroughfare. That danger passed some time ago, thanks first to competition from edge of town centres and, latterly, the internet, the use of which has, of course, accelerated during the pandemic.

Little wonder then that “A New Future for Scotland’s Town Centres” (referred to above) is just the latest of several offerings on how to stop – and, hopefully, reverse – what has become a serious trend in economic and social rot.

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What particularly drew me was the reference to housing which, the report says, has a key role to play in the regeneration of town centres. It correctly states that progress in increasing new and refurbished housing in town centres has been relatively small scale and calls for: more flexible funding for local authorities to promote this; recommends collaborative projects with private social and public partnerships to incentivise the reuse of empty space; and suggests enhancing the level of grants and loans given to individuals to turn redundant properties into living space.

So far so good. The not-so-good part is the reference to car use and the need – so the report’s authors seem to suggest – to curb it by taxing personal parking spaces not just in town centres but the suburbs as well.

It’s a pity the report’s “review group” did not include a representative from the residential property sector. Had it done so he (or she) would have explained that car parking is perhaps the major non-core issue for many home-buyers. And the more personal and secure the parking space is the more they like it.

Frankly, the symbiosis between householders and their cars is as strong as ever. Even in cities with good public transport used equally by “dukes and dustmen” (Edinburgh’s bus network is similar to the London Underground in this respect), people still want cars for regular ancillary functions other than commuting to work. Thus the streets of popular, inner-city neighbourhoods like Polworth or Marchmont, with residents within a few minutes’ walk of an intensive bus service, are bumper-to-bumper with parked cars despite charges and various restrictions. Which is why housing developments with their own off-street spaces (some of which have revitalised redundant land) are so popular. Impose a tax on them and town centres become less attractive. Ditto traditional “local” shopping areas also suffering retail blight who might be helped by an influx of new residents.

Fortunately such a scheme would only work if applied to every urban part of the country and there would be no escaping the tax wherever one lived. However I suspect most local authorities would be opposed to having the power to set their own parking strategies taken away from them.

By all means let’s improve public transport but as more electric models come onto the road, treating cars as the “great polluters” will become less justified. So it makes sense to make provision for them in otherwise welcome housing strategies aimed at playing a part in reviving our town centres.

David Alexander is managing director of DJ Alexander

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